


Let Me Help

by dirigibleplumbing



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game)
Genre: (though that isn't super relevant to the story), Arc Reactor Issues, Birthday Party, Birthday Presents, Chronic Pain, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Disability, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Steve and Tony watch a lot of Star Trek, Tony Stark's Cheese Fridge (Avengers Academy), Tony Stark's Gauntlet is a Prosthesis, plot relevant Star Trek references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21889660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleplumbing/pseuds/dirigibleplumbing
Summary: Steve sees Tony collapse in Club A and leave in a hurry with Jan. Then it happens again, and another time after that. Steve wants to help, but he doesn’t know how—or if Tony will accept it. Meanwhile, there are rumors of an imminent AIM attack on the Academy, and Tony's birthday is coming up…
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 60
Kudos: 112





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All chapters are complete and edited, I’m just posting them one at a time over the course of Hannukah (like a Hannukah advent except not). The chapters vary in length from ~1300 - ~2900, so watch out for that. In my time zone this first chapter is being posted before Hannukah actually starts; it starts at sundown tonight. 
> 
> (PS: I’m spelling Hannukah right. You’re spelling Hannukah right. [We’re all spelling Hannukah right.](https://www.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_different_ways_to_spell_Hanukkah)) 
> 
> Warning: There’s a little bit of ableist sentiment in this story, mostly Steve directing it at himself. 
> 
> Chronic pain and disability are a major theme in this story. It’s mostly about Tony and his arc reactor, but there are some de-serumed Steve feels too. I’ve experienced chronic pain for over 20 years, and have at times in my life been temporarily physically disabled in other ways. My husband has similar issues. Inevitably, this work reflects my personal experiences of chronic pain, disability, and trying to be there for someone when there’s basically nothing I can physically do to help. These may be very different from your own experiences with pain and chronic issues. 
> 
> You don’t need to have played AvAc to follow this story. The main thing you need to know is that everyone is still a superhero, they’re just ambiguously in their early 20s and attend the Academy together, alongside some anti-heroes and fan-favorite villains. The villains in this story, AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics), are entirely in the background. In this universe, AIM is a competing school that focuses on scientific experiments. 
> 
> Timelines and universes are all mixed together in AvAc. For example, there’s both a Bucky Barnes—with a domino mask and two flesh arms and a WWII outfit—and a Winter Soldier—with long hair and a modern outfit and one metal arm. I decided that Steve should have all the friends, so both Buckys appear in this story. 
> 
> Like in the comics, AvAc Loki is sometimes Lady Loki. I decided that she’s Lady Loki for the duration of this story, so her pronouns are she/her for the whole piece. 
> 
> The “Eric” referred to a couple times in the story is Eric Brooks, who you probably know as Blade. It doesn’t really matter who he is, though, beyond someone Steve thinks Tony finds attractive. 
> 
> Note to those who _are_ familiar with AvAc: rather than using “Jane Foster Thor” the way the game does, I’m referring to her as “Mighty Thor.”

Outside the windows of Club A, the marquee of Stark Tower flares with the words STARK, STARK, STARK—a lot like the inside of Steve’s brain, really. On the dance floor, Tony himself dances, moving like molten metal and light given form. He dances how he flies: effortlessly and joyfully. He flashes a dazzling smile—not toward Steve, he’s probably looking at Eric or Pepper or one of the other beautiful people who are already gravitating toward where Tony and Jan are dancing. Fuchsia spotlights and blinking string lights reflect off the brick walls, off Tony’s skin, off the smooth metal of Tony’s gauntlet. The arc reactor glows cyan through his dark tee, drawing Steve’s eyes across the club like a ship to a lighthouse. 

If Sam’s noticed Steve’s distraction, he’s kind enough not to mention it. “Why doesn’t the Academy have a Quidditch team?” Sam muses. “We’ve got enough fliers, after all.” 

Steve chuckles and directs his attention entirely to Sam and the pool table. He’s lining up his shot when it happens—on the other side of the room, Tony is crouched on the checkered dance floor, his head between his knees. Jan is curled protectively over him, grasping his hands. The sound in the room shifts, like a radio station has been abruptly changed, the laughter and yelling over the music giving way to the distinctive cadence of gossip. 

Steve’s feet move him across the club without permission from his brain. He’s still clutching the pool cue. He sees Tony ahead of him, his shoulders heaving. Amid the buzz of voices, Steve thinks he can make out Tony’s shuddering breaths. 

By the time Steve gets there, Jan has Tony on his feet and is helping him to the back door. He’s leaning heavily on her, clutching at—his chest? They’re almost out of the club when Jan lifts her head to glare at everyone staring. Steve turns away, feeling sheepish. He ducks his head, his eyes on his shoes as he makes his way back to the pool table. 

“What was that about?” Sam asks. 

“Dunno,” Steve says. “I think Tony’s sick or something.” 

“Huh. Hope he’s okay.” Sam shrugs. “Your turn.” 

The regular chatter and drunken shouting overtakes the room once more. Steve glances at the door Jan pulled Tony through only moments ago. It remains stubbornly shut, giving no clue as to what just happened. 

* * *

In a carrel at the other end of the room, Tony flicks a lipstick-red metal finger into his mouth, swipes it with his tongue, and then uses it to turn the page of the book in his lap. He chews on his lip, frowning down at the page, shifting in his seat. 

“He’s fine,” Natasha chides. 

Steve looks away from Tony, his face flushing. “He fell down or something at Club A last night, Nat, and then he left. I think he was really hurt,” Steve explains. At the other end of the library, Tony squirms in his seat—looking, truth be told, perfectly fine, if too antsy to be reading quietly in a library—repositioning himself and his book for the umpteenth time. 

“I know,” Natasha says evenly. 

“You were on a mission last night,” Steve points out. 

“Yes,” she agrees. 

Right, of course Nat knows what happened better than Steve, even though Steve was actually there. He should have asked her in the first place.

“If he were sick he wouldn’t have been in Probability and Stochastic Processes this morning.” When Steve opens his mouth to say something, Natasha rolls her eyes and adds, “It’s across the hall from my Programming Abstractions class, I saw him go in. And,” she goes on, her tone growing sharper, “he wouldn’t be studying in here, he’d be letting Jan take care of him in Stark Tower.” 

“So what happened?” 

Across the room, Tony rearranges himself in his seat again. Steve thinks he can hear the wood frame of the chair creak all the way from where he’s sitting. He wonders what subject Tony’s trying to study that has him so restless and frustrated, and why he’s here at all instead of getting help from JARVIS. 

Nat’s face twists sourly. “I’m not sure,” she admits. “But I think it’s something to do with his arc reactor.” 

“What?” Steve straightens up, setting his textbook down. “How so?” 

“I don’t know,” Nat says. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything, okay? Now, c’mon, let’s get back to work.” 

Steve tries to return his attention to his notes for the essay he has to write for their class on 20th Century Germany and the Unification of Europe, but his eyes keeps finding their way back to Tony. 

* * *

Steve’s hearing had improved after Rebirth, of course, and now he also knows some of Natasha’s techniques for maintaining at least a low-level awareness of what other people are doing and saying even while focusing on something else. And, well, he’s already been more aware of Tony than he should be—of his presence, his voice, the way his smile quirks up on one side, the dexterous way he moves the fingers of the gauntlet, the way he seems to light up from the inside when he’s talking about his tech. So deciding to track Tony more consciously—for his health, obviously for his health, so that he could help in time, if Tony’s hurt again—shouldn’t be much of a change at all. 

Yet, Steve feels it acutely. They have the same chemistry lab time that afternoon, one of the few academic classes they share. And they don’t share it, exactly, since Tony’s working on his projects for the two advanced courses he was taking with Dr. Pym—Organometallic Compounds and Crystal Structure Analysis—while Steve is still just fighting his way through Basic Principles of Chemistry. Tony is several rows away, perched on a tall stool, bending over the lab table, his jet boots tucked under him, showing Jan a robot he’d shrunk with Pym particles. Steve can hear Tony’s breath even over the chatter of the other students, the whir of centrifuges, the sizzle of solutions over Bunsen burners. 

He wishes he could just talk to Tony himself. Ask him what’s wrong, how he can help. But he and Tony aren’t like that anymore—if they ever were. The camaraderie they’d shared before the Civil War feels like a daydream. Tony has every reason to be wary of him, Steve reminds himself. Of course, the thought does nothing to alleviate his worry. 

Is it weird to wish that his hearing were even more powerful, strong enough to hear Tony’s heartbeat? 

Steve hunches over his beaker. Yeah, it’s definitely weird. And probably at least a little creepy.

* * *

Steve’s been listening, and watching, and he still isn’t able to help the next time it happens. It’s been a couple of weeks since the incident at Club A, and he’s been hoping that whatever was wrong won’t recur. 

He’s working out in the Power Gym when Loki saunters in and leans against his treadmill. 

She smirks and examines her fingernails. “I take it you haven’t heard.” 

“What is it, Loki,” Steve grumbles. There are rumors that AIM’s going to launch another attack, but if that’s what’s happening now, there would be an alarm, a call to assemble. It wouldn’t just be Loki, gliding in and trying to rile Steve up. 

Loki’s smile widens. “Armor Man,” she says with relish. 

“What about him?” 

“He collapsed. Bug Woman had to practically carry him out of the Blasting Range,” Loki says, sounding excited. Steve clenches his fists and reminds him that punching Loki won’t actually improve the situation. Well, it might feel good, but it won’t help Tony. “She neglected to take a selfie to commemorate the occasion. It seems she is capable of restraining herself at times.” 

Steve takes a steadying breath and turns off his treadmill. “Thank you for telling me,” he says finally. 

“I’m sure you’ll find some way to repay me, won’t you?” 

“If you say so,” Steve says, grabbing his gym bag and heading out the door. 

It must look like he’s just going on a jog across campus, because no one gives him a second glance as he runs all the way to Stark Tower. 

When he gets there, JARVIS won’t let him in. 

“I want to help Tony,” Steve tells the glowing electronic panel at the door. He looks up at where he thinks some of the cameras JARVIS uses might be. 

“Mr. Stark is unavailable,” JARVIS says smoothly. 

There’s nowhere else Jan would take Tony if he wasn’t feeling well, and if they came from the Blasting Range, there’s no way Steve could’ve beaten them to the tower. “I know he’s here,” Steve says, hating how whiny his voice sounds. “I’m worried about him.” 

“I’m afraid Mr. Stark is unavailable,” JARVIS says again. 

He’s still arguing with JARVIS five minutes later when the doors slide open with a pneumatic hiss. Jan steps forward, her arms crossed. “What’s up, Steve?” she says. She’s smiling and her voice is friendly, but Steve can see she’s tense and doesn’t want to be talking to him. 

“How’s Tony?” 

She softens a little. “He’s okay,” Jan says after a moment. She looks him up and down, no doubt taking in his sweaty gym clothes and disheveled appearance. “Is that why you’re here?” 

Steve nods. “What happened?” 

Jan bites her lip and looks away. “It’s—I’m only telling you because I know you’re worried, okay?” 

“Okay,” Steve says. 

She meets his gaze, her eyes blazing. “Tony says you’ve worked out your differences and everything, so I’m trusting you, alright Steve?” Steve nods again. “He doesn’t want anyone to know, so you can’t tell anyone this, or that I told you. Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s the shrapnel in his chest.” 

Steve’s breath catches. “The—”

“It’s not actually moving, he’s fine,” she rushes to add. “It’s a phantom pain sort of thing, I think. He won’t really talk about it, even to me.” 

“So he’s going to be okay?” 

“Yeah, it just comes on suddenly, and there’s not a lot he can do about it.” 

God, Tony must hate that. Steve can think of few things Tony would like less than having a problem he can’t fix—and when that problem is himself, well. “And he doesn’t want to see me.” 

Jan sighs. “He’s sensitive,” she says. “He doesn’t like people seeing him like this.” 

“Can you tell him I stopped by?” Steve asks. 

Jan purses her lips. 

“You don’t have to say I know what happened or that you told me anything, just that I came by to—to hang out, or” —he’s realizing as he says it that _coming by to hang out_ isn’t something he does these days, though he promises himself immediately that it will be— “or to see if he wanted to come train with me or—or help me with my chemistry homework.” 

“Which one?” Jan asks, smiling. 

Steve looks away and rubs at the back of his neck. “Um. The chemistry homework one?” 

“Sure thing, Steve.” 

“Thank you for telling me.” 

“Don’t make me regret it!” Jan calls over her shoulder as she heads back inside. The doors slide shut with a woosh. 

* * *

Flutters of light reflect off the fountain in the center of Avengers Park and onto Tony’s gauntlet as he skims it over the surface of the water. It ripples with reflections the color of candied apples. Tony turns at Steve’s approach, turning a sunlight-bright grin his way. Steve tries not to shuffle self-consciously at the sight of his own tense reflection in Tony’s sunglasses. 

“You want help with chemistry?” Tony asks. 

“Oh,” Steve says. “Not right now?” 

Tony frowns. There’s a tufted dandelion seed in one eyebrow, like he just he’s just blown them off a seedhead to make a wish. “Then what’s up?” 

“I was going to the arcade.” 

“Okay,” Tony says slowly. “Have fun?” 

Steve closes his eyes and curses himself. “I thought you might want to come?” 

“Oh!” Tony takes a moment to recover, then he gets to his feet, the high-watt smile back on his face. “Sure thing, Cap. Can’t get enough training in, huh?” 

“No,” Steve says, and this is the reason he hadn’t been asking Tony to hang out with him, because what if he said no? What if, since everything that happened between them, he’s just tolerating Steve for the sake of the team, the school? Well, Steve’s decided that if that’s the case, he needs to know. He steels himself to go on. “No, I mean, not for training, or not only for training, I thought it’d be fun?” 

“Fun,” Tony repeats, quirking an eyebrow. It’s the one with the dandelion plume stuck in it and Steve wants to lean over and make it fly off with his own breath and his own wish. 

“To go to the arcade,” Steve says desperately. “You know. Hang out? Be friends?” 

“Right,” Tony says, his voice gone sharp. He settles a hand on Steve’s shoulder and starts guiding him toward the arcade, like it was his idea. His smile is wider than ever. “Then let’s go to the arcade.” 

Steve lets himself be led, feeling a bit lost. It’s not long, though, before he forgets to worry, because he and Tony are bickering over a racing game, and then they’re laughing, and then Tony’s hand is over his, trying to wrest a joystick out of his grasp, boasting about how he’s going to kick Steve’s ass in the next round, just wait and see, Cap. 

So that’s that gone to plan, at least. 


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Steve saw Tony’s cheese fridge, it went like this: 

Tony was there the moment Steve stepped out of the penthouse elevator.

“You made it!” Tony had beamed. He’d taken off his jacket, so he was just in a black tee and dark, snug jeans. His hair was mussed, his feet bare, and the arc reactor blazed bright under the thin fabric of his shirt. 

“Hi Tony,” Steve replied, trying to keep his grin under control. 

“Everyone else is back this way,” Tony said, turning and leading the way. 

And—oh. Right. Tony really was just going to show Steve his cheese fridge. Along with other people, apparently. 

Steve hadn’t had his hopes up, exactly—it hadn’t sounded like a date, he was pretty sure he’d know it if Tony Stark asked him out on a date, he’d heard him ask Natasha and Pepper and Eric and Claire and Peter Quill and once even Jan on dates, and, well, _straightforward_ was one word for his approach—but it was a blow nonetheless when he’d followed Tony into a cozy living room and found Jan and Rhodes there, too. 

This was back when they were first friends, best friends, and it felt almost safe to have those kinds of hopes. Maybe the whole experience should have taught him that they want different things from each other. 

The fridge was impressive, sure. It gleamed and—like most of the things in Stark Tower—was comprised a lot of polished metal and glass. He’d loved seeing Tony’s excitement as he explained about the different temperature controls for hard cheeses versus soft ones versus fresh ones. And the Gruyère and the sheep’s milk brie really had been delicious. To this day, Steve’s not sure whether Tony had been joking about sending one robot to San Francisco for sourdough and another to Paris for baguette, but he’d managed to enjoy the food and company, mostly. 

Still. When Tony had originally called him, Steve had expected something—well. Something different. 

It wasn’t the first time Steve had assumed an innuendo when something really was just about… cheese. 

(This time, he didn’t mention it to Bucky. He’d been embarrassed enough, thanks.)

Then Loki showed up, and even though she hadn’t been invited there was plenty of bread and cheese and crudités to go around. Steve had still been harboring unformed hopes about how the rest of the evening might go, but Loki’s arrival finally put them to rest.

So he’d left early and headed back to the Avengers Dorm to spend some quality time with a punching bag. A reinforced, supersoldier-proof—and it was, Hulk and Carol had tested the prototypes—punching bag designed by Tony Stark. Even at home, he couldn’t—still can’t—escape being reminded of Tony. 

Well. Not that the dorm is home, exactly. 

He tried to be happy that Tony invited him at all. If only Steve hadn’t had such unrealistic expectations. 

Steve hit the bag hard enough that an ordinary one would have broken open, but of course it wasn’t an ordinary one and it just swung back at him. Out the window, beyond the string lights and neon of Club A, the marquee of Stark Tower marched along in flashing LEDs: STARK, STARK, STARK. Tony was up there, at the very top, having a great time without Steve. 

With a deep breath, Steve positioned himself so Stark Tower was behind him, and got back to his workout. 

Steve, with his quaint misunderstandings and old-fashioned clothes, isn’t fancy enough for Tony, anyway. Tony will probably end up with Jan, or someone like her: fashionable, old money, cheerful. Not someone who sees things so differently that they split the entire student body down the middle. 

* * *

A week after that first arcade visit, Steve and Tony have been back to the arcade twice, met for pizza once, grabbed coffee between classes almost every day, watched old episodes of Star Trek, had drinks at Club A with Jan and Sam, and even gone a few rounds of pool together. They’ve studied together, too; Tony helped Steve with his chemistry, and somehow when Tony explained it, it was easy to see how exciting it was, to visualize how the most basic of elements could interact and create new things and how to use that to predict outcomes and solve problems and make things. Steve thinks they’re well on their way to being good friends again. Maybe best friends. Like they’d never had that stupid Civil War at all. Tony’s even made sure to ask Steve more than once to make sure he’s coming to Tony’s birthday party next month. 

But for all the time they’ve been spending together, Steve’s still not there the next time Tony’s hurt. 

Steve’s at the Asgardian Forge, working on his shield, when Loki’s there, lounging against a golden anvil. Steve tries to ignore her. 

A few minutes later Loki, no doubt bored by the lack of attention, huffs and says, “Armor Man had to leave Dr. Pym’s Nanoscale Materials seminar in quite a hurry.” 

Steve stops what he’s doing and straightens up, actually looking at Loki now. She preens. 

“Is he alright? Where is he?” 

Loki shrugs delicately. “The last I saw him, he was curled up under a tree in Avengers Park.” 

“And you just left him there?” Steve growls, already grabbing his things and jogging out the door. 

“That’s two you owe me, America Man!” Loki calls after him. 

Steve’s pretty sure Loki isn’t really going to call in some horrible favor from him. Loki and Tony get along, better than Loki gets along with most people; this could very well be her way of trying to help a friend. At any rate, Steve doesn’t have time to worry about it now. If he needs to, he’ll figure out a way to handle Loki.

He reaches the edge of the park just in time to hear a hum of repulsors and catch a flash of gunmetal gray and a glint of red; War Machine is flying Tony toward the tower. Steve watches their arc through the air. When they light on the landing pad on the roof of Stark Tower, Steve breaks back into a run. 

JARVIS still won’t let him in. 

“I just want to be there for him,” Steve pleads. 

“Mr. Stark is unavailable,” JARVIS says.

This time when the doors finally open, it’s James Rhodes blocking the doorway, looking unimpressed. It doesn’t help that Steve’s never sure how to address him. They don’t really have classes together, and while they’d spent some time together when Rhodes first joined the Academy, it hadn’t been long before the Civil War business interrupted everything. They haven’t spent much time together socially since then, mostly just nodding at each other across the bar at Club A when both their groups of friends are there at the same time. It’s fine in combat situations, when they both have the task to focus on, and Steve can just call him War Machine. But he’s not wearing the armor at all now, not even the black gauntlet that matches Tony’s red one. 

Tony, of course, calls him Rhodey, but that feels too familiar for Steve. And James isn’t much better, considering there are already two James Buchanan Barneses on campus, and while Steve still thinks of them both as Bucky in his own mind, they’re also who he pictures when he hears the name _James_. 

So Steve just says, “Hi.” 

“Hey Steve,” Rhodes says. “What’s up?” 

“Um, I heard that Tony wasn’t feeling well, and I wanted—”

“Tony’s fine,” Rhodes interrupts. “I’ll tell him you stopped by, okay?” 

“But.” Steve doesn’t actually have a follow-up. He swallows. 

Rhodes sighs, and some of the tension leaves his posture. “I know you wanna help, Cap, but he doesn’t want anyone to see him right now. I promise that when he’s feeling better, he’ll be glad to hear that you came by.” He tilts his head. “I just won’t tell him that you knew he’s hurt.” 

“Why is he so afraid of letting people know he’s sick? We’d all just want to help,” Steve gripes. 

Rhodes sputters out a laugh. “Well yeah, of course we would.” 

“So—”

“How’d you know to come here, anyway?” 

“Oh. Loki told me.” 

“Loki told you,” Rhodes repeats slowly. 

“Yeah, she saw Tony leave Dr. Pym’s lecture and came to find me, I guess.” 

“And Jan told you what’s going on with Tony.” 

Steve had promised not to tell anyone what Jan told him, but. “Well—” 

“It’s okay, she told me she told you.” Rhodes smiles. “She has some scheme cooking, I think. I try to stay out of it. I gotta head back up, but I’ll definitely tell him you were looking for him, okay?” 

“Okay. Thank you.” 

“You know, he just doesn’t want you to think poorly of him,” Rhodes says, straightening and starting to turn to head back inside. “Or to scratch him from combat,” he adds, as an afterthought. 

Then he’s gone, leaving Steve to stand on Tony’s doorstep, thinking that over. 

* * *

“Hey,” Steve says, opening the door and then ducking back into his room. “Sorry I’m not ready, I can’t find my workout clothes, and I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” 

Tony leans against the inside of Steve’s door frame, hip jutting distractingly to one side. “I would’ve told you if I was flaking,” he says, watching Steve hunt through his piles of dirty laundry and stacks of paper. 

“Right, of course,” Steve replies, finally finding a clean pair of sweatpants and stuffing them into his gym bag. Of course, of course Tony doesn’t want to talk about being sick. He wants Steve to pretend he doesn’t know he left the lecture earlier that morning. 

At least it’s a distraction from feeling self-conscious about how messy his room is. He tosses some energy drinks and power bars into his bag too, for good measure, and is struggling with the zipper when he notices Tony watching him. He suppresses the shivering feeling crawling up his spine. “What?” 

“Do you ever train in your uniform?” Tony asks. 

“Yeah, of course,” Steve says, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “But you’re not wearing your armor, so.” He shrugs. 

Tony’s eyes light up, as they usually do at the word _armor_. “We should try that sometime,” he says, a giddy smile on his face. “Do you want an armor? I could make you one. It could have a star-shaped arc reactor.” 

Talk of Steve’s hypothetical, patriotic-themed armor—“Hear me out: bald eagle wings with articulated feathers made out of vibranium”—takes them all the way to the Arena of War for their sparring practice. Every time Tony mentions the arc reactor, Steve thinks of asking him— _are you okay? should we do something else?_ —but he doesn’t quite get the nerve to do it. 


	3. Chapter 3

Steve shifts in his seat restlessly. His and Nat’s reconnaissance at the AIM Institute of Super-Technology provided no leads on the rumored attack. He wants to act, to do _something_ , but there’s nothing to be done. There’s not even much to distract him—beyond thoughts of Tony, but those are always in the back of his mind anyway. He knows Natasha prefers to do most things in silence, but he also knows that she won’t press him or tease him too much and will let him leave a lot of what he doesn’t want to say unsaid. He’s not sure where that leaves him.

Natasha glances over at him from the cockpit. She tilts her head at him and says, “You have something you want to say about Tony.” 

Well, of course she’s noticed. “Do you think he’d like a set of cheese knives?” Steve asks. Tony’s birthday is less than a month away now. But Natasha doesn’t need anything so pedestrian as context: she knows exactly what Steve’s talking about. 

“Yes,” she says, a knowing smirk playing on her face. “But don’t get regular cheese knives from a department store or something like that.” 

“What? Why not?” Are there special billionaire cheese knives? Or maybe 21st-century ones Steve doesn’t know about? Probably not the latter, at least, because if there were a known way to improve something metal and analog by adding lasers or hard light holograms or an AI, Tony would’ve been the one to figure it out, and all of campus—and by extension Steve—would know all about it. 

“It’s a matter of principle,” Natasha says, her face blank now, her voice mild. “What’s the point in having knives if you can’t use them to hurt people when you need to?” 

Steve figures no response is necessary to a sentence like that, and they fly the rest of the way back to campus with barely another word exchanged. 

* * *

There’s a strategy meeting the next day, going over what they know about AIM and their plans—which isn’t much, but at least now everyone’s on the same page. Natasha, Peggy, and Coulson report on the intel they’ve gathered, then Tony talks them through his analysis of AIM’s last video transmission. 

“Hey,” Winter Soldier says when the meeting’s ended and everyone is standing up to leave, “wanna hang out while I practice?” 

“Sure,” Sam says. “Just don’t forget I took a class on close reading and modern poetry last semester. I hope you appreciate constructive criticism.” 

“Oh.” Steve scratches the back of his head and shuffles his feet. “I’d love to. But I already have plans with Tony, actually. I’ll be there for your set tonight for sure!” he adds hastily. “Wouldn’t miss it.” 

Standing around Club Galaxy listening to the sounds Winter Warlock makes isn’t really how Steve would prefer to spend his evening. Especially after an afternoon of playing at the arcade with Tony; it seems a pity to cut that short for a show Steve won’t even enjoy. He never entertains the thought of missing a show, though. He supports his friends, and they can only get better with practice, right? That’s what he tells himself, anyway. 

The setup of the band is: Winter Soldier on guitar and lead vocals; Adam Warlock on bass; and Bucky on accordion. The latter’s cheerful tunes and rollicking marches don’t exactly gel with Winter’s emotional lyrics and feedback-filled guitar solos. It doesn’t help that Adam clearly resents not being front man, and tries to find ways to upstage Winter. If they had a good percussionist, their sets would be more tolerable, but Gwen refuses to perform with them on the grounds that they aren’t sufficiently punk rock. 

Still. Maybe Tony will come with him. If anyone can find a way to dance to that mess, it’s Tony. 

As if summoned by Steve’s thought, Tony walks into view across the room, catches sight of Steve, and lifts an arm to flag him down. 

“There he is,” Steve says, relieved to have an excuse to cut the conversation short and avoid further discussion of Winter’s songwriting. “See you tonight!” 

As he crosses the room to reach Tony, he catches Sam saying, “Have fun!” in a sing-song voice Steve doesn’t know quite what to make of. 

* * *

Natasha sets her bag down and sinks onto the stone bench beside Steve. “The hot tub helps.” 

Steve looks up at her. “What are we talking about?” 

“With Tony’s pain,” Natasha explains. 

Steve hasn’t told her what Jan told him. Natasha hasn’t mentioned knowing about it before now. But already she’s talking about it like they’re on the same page. 

Apparently, they are. 

“Heat helps relieve it, and that includes his hot tub,” Natasha continues, starting to take books and a laptop out of her bag and arranging them on the bench. “I think that’s part of why he didn’t get in more trouble with Fury for building it.” 

“How’d you find out?” Steve asks. At her glare, he adds, “If it’s not, I don’t know, against your spy code to tell me.” 

“He had another episode last night,” she says. 

Steve’s heart sinks. Tony had another flare-up, and Steve didn’t know. It probably hadn’t even occurred to Tony that Steve would want to help. Rhodes had said that Tony doesn’t want Steve to think poorly of him, but what does it mean that Tony thinks so poorly of _him_ that he doesn’t trust that Steve just wants to be there for him? 

Natasha goes on, “Amora did something that might have helped, or maybe just distracted him” —Steve scowls at that, he _hates_ how Amora treats Tony, and how he acts around her— “but it wasn’t enough. Pepper was taking him back to the tower and I overheard them talking.” 

Steve had been training with Winter last night. He wonders whether Loki isn’t helping him any more, or if Loki just didn’t know. “And he’s okay now?” 

Nat rolls her eyes. “Yes, he was just in my computer science class giving a guest lecture on machine learning.” 

“Great. Great, thank you. Any other news? About AIM?” he adds quickly. 

Natasha nods. “Yes. James and I tracked down a defector and—” the discussion is soon taken over by logistics and intel. The AIM attack seems like a sure thing, at this point, they just have frustratingly little idea of what they’re after or when they might strike. Still, preparing a defense is a puzzle Steve can at least begin to solve, and he’ll take his victories where he can. 

* * *

That night, after spending the whole afternoon and evening with Tony—practicing for hours at the Arena of War, followed by dim sum takeout and watching a half-dozen out-of-order episodes of Star Trek: the Original Series—Steve goes to the Archives. He researches cheese knives, cheese plates, throwing knives, kitchen knives, and fighting knives. Usually, he prefers to look things up at Stark Tower and have JARVIS help him—he’s still slower than he’d like typing on keyboards—but that’s obviously out of the question for this particular project. 

He wakes up early the next morning and takes his motorcycle into the city. Sam is already up and stretching his wings, soaring high above SHIELD headquarters and the highest reaches of Stark Tower. The hedgerows and brickwork of campus soon give way to the concrete and dense bustle of the city, and Steve loses himself in speeding through town, weaving in and out of the sparse, pre-dawn traffic, lanesplitting and swerving and probably getting in a lot of trouble with Fury but having a great time doing it. He has hours before his first class of the day—he’d picked his schedule this semester with more of a mind toward a certain tech genius’ circadian rhythm than his own, meaning that even though they don’t have many of the same classes they’re roughly on the same schedule—so he drives all the way to Park Slope to his favorite bagel shop in all of Brooklyn. 

There’s a little patio in the back, with kelly-green picnic tables, crunchy gravel underfoot, and potted plants in tin containers. He finds an unoccupied corner of a bench and squeezes into the table, letting the buzz of activity flow around him. His smoothie is named after the Hulk, probably because it’s green rather than any other reason; Steve hasn’t seen Bruce eat much kale or seem particularly interested in coconut water, and suspects the concept of drinking wheatgrass would induce smashing-type behavior more than anything else. He scarfs down his sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese and then his protein omelette breakfast bagel sandwich with egg whites and Swiss cheese and then he’s thinking about cheese again.

The everyday traffic of the city has given way to full-blown weekday rush-hour congestion by the time he emerges, and when he gets back on his bike he’s subjected to the regular flow of traffic. It’s slow going back to Manhattan, but between the honking and the exhaust fumes he at least has time to drink his to-go Americano and come up with a plan. 

Everything goes smoothly at the knife shop Steve had found online. His custom order will be ready just in time for Tony’s birthday party. He makes his way down the crowded sidewalk toward his bike with a smile on his face. Tony may not feel the same way Steve does, but they’re friends. If Tony’s caught on to Steve’s—let’s call it infatuation—he’s been polite enough not to say anything. They hang out nearly every day. And, hopefully, Steve’s found a good birthday present for him. 

Distracted by thoughts of Tony—Tony, meeting him at the pretzel cart, still covered in glitter from a night at Club A; Tony, putting on pajamas, wrapping himself in blankets, and sitting right next to Steve to watch TV, even though there’s five other couches in the room; Tony, as Steve imagines he looks in the morning, comfy slippers on his feet, rubbing his eyes, demanding coffee and a cheese omelette—Steve almost misses the flash of yellow and black ducking into the crowd. 

It turns out that this time, knowing he’s about to be surrounded by AIM scientists isn’t enough to get by scot-free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, there’s not going to be any hot tub cuddling in this fic. In case you were getting your hopes up. (There will be clothed cuddling!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up that most of the ableist sentiment is I'm this chapter, and not all of it is addressed as such within the text.
> 
> Apologies for not getting this up earlier in the day! I think every family in the county not observing Christmas picked the same restaurant mine did.

The knocking at Steve’s door grows louder. “Go away,” he grumbles, trying to hide under his covers. If someone’s come to visit him, it means the battle against AIM is over. Steve’s missed the entire thing and it didn’t even matter. 

The knocking stops. Steve lets out a relieved breath. 

Then he hears the whine of repulsors being charged. “Hey, don’t—” 

Too late. The door to his room crashes open, the outside doorknob and lock melted and mangled. Tony stands there, looking frustrated and determined and beautiful, his hair flattened on one side, his lips bitten dark and swollen. 

He stomps in. Steve knows he can step lightly when he wants to, even in his wide jet boots. These loud, heavy footfalls are intentional. “I was worried about you,” Tony says, tromping toward Steve’s bed. 

“I’m fine, you can go now,” Steve says, ducking back under his blankets. 

He feels his mattress shift under him as Tony sits down. “You’re being really stupid.” 

“Yep,” Steve says into a wall of fabric. “I’m stupid, you’re a genius, please go.” 

Tony sighs. There’s a comforter and a quilt and a sheet and of course all their clothes between them, but they’re still pressed against each other, Tony’s lower back nestled right up to Steve’s waist, and Steve thinks he can hear Tony’s heartbeat. Or maybe it’s only his own. His hearing isn’t at peak levels right now, after all. 

“You’re not stupid,” Tony grumbles. “You’re just acting stupid. And I get why you don’t want anyone to see you, okay?” 

“So you’re going to go?” Steve asks hopefully. 

“As if,” Tony scoffs. “I’m your best bet at fixing whatever AIM did to you.” 

Right. Of course. Why else would Tony be here. “Can’t you do that from the Tower? I already gave a ton of blood samples at the infirmary.” 

“Sorry, I’m not saying this right.” Tony rearranges his legs, making the mattress dip and buckle, and Steve is painfully aware that they’re alone in his room. Sure, the door’s been blown open and Steve’s hiding under the covers, but they’re both on his bed, technically, and that’s all that matters to some primal part of his brain. “Do you think you can look at me while we’re talking?” 

Steve weighs his choices. If he refuses, it’s not like Tony will leave. And there’s no postponing the inevitable—Tony knows what’s happened, and he’s not going away. Steve takes the edge of the blankets and pulls them down his face, watching Tony for his reaction. 

“There, was that so hard?” Tony asks, smiling a little. “See, it’s not that bad.” 

Steve shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to say to make Tony understand. 

“Hey, okay, so,” Tony begins, looking thoughtful. “Before you—I mean, when you aren’t pumped full of super-soldier serum, you have asthma, right?” 

Steve nods. “Other stuff, too,” he says. “But I guess that’s the big one. They gave me some inhalers, it helps a lot.” He thinks but doesn’t say: _see, I’m fine, you can go_. 

“That’s great,” Tony says, a little too heartily. “Great. What I wanted to say was, I think I know how you’re feeling.” 

“Oh yeah?” Steve asks, sounding more sour than he intends to. Tony’s baseline human without his armor, but now, without the serum, Steve’s… much less than that, even. 

Tony scrubs a metal hand over his face. Steve can’t see the red of the gauntlet. It looks dull and wrong, _Tony_ looks wrong without the color, and Steve hates it. “I get this, um, pain sometimes.” 

Steve’s eyes widen in surprise. Tony’s staring at his own feet and doesn’t notice. “In my chest.” He taps the arc reactor, the metal of the gauntlet clacking against the casing. “There’s not actually anything _wrong_ , not like, with the nerves or muscles of anything, there’s nothing damaged.” His face twists. “There’s nothing to fix. It just hurts.” 

“That’s why you left Club A all of a sudden that one time, right?” 

“Yeah, usually it’s not a big deal, but it flares up really bad sometimes.” 

“Usually?” 

Tony makes a face. “Well, yeah, I mean. There’s a hunk of metal embedded in my chest, Cap. It isn’t exactly comfortable.” He starts, as if something’s just occurred to him. “It’s not a big deal, though, I mean, I’m fine to fight, obviously I am, I’ve done it a ton of times, I just meant—”

“It’s okay.” 

“Okay.” Tony swallows. Steve watches his throat work, the way the sunlight plays over his stubble. “It reduces my lung capacity a little, too, so when I _am_ really hurt, it’s hard to get enough breath to feel better.” 

“It’s like that with asthma, sometimes,” Steve agrees. “I can’t really breathe when I get a bad attack.” 

Tony nods. “I can breathe, I just—feel like I can’t.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Have you ever had a heart attack?” 

“No,” Steve says, hating this turn the conversation has taken. He hates being reminded how fragile Tony’s health was before the arc reactor, about the shrapnel that’s still lodged inside him. 

“Unhelpful comparison, then. Okay, so, there’s nothing actually blocking my airway or in my lungs or anything like that—nothing more than usual anyway—but when it gets bad, it’s like, this pressure, digging into me. I can’t actually feel the reactor, inside me. I mean, there aren’t nerve endings there. But when it flares up it’s this—this spiraling pressure, like, like a whirlpool, and the centripetal force is making my ribcage curl in on itself, pressing more and more until it’s pushing all the air out of my lungs and just trying to inhale makes everything hurt worse.” 

Tony shakes himself, smiling ruefully. “Making it all about me again. Not really what I meant to do.” 

“It’s okay,” Steve says, wishing he could articulate what he was feeling. How grateful he is that Tony is sharing any of this with him. 

“I know it’s different because everything you’re going through is real. You really do have asthma and sinusitis and heart problems and everything else, I’m not saying I know exactly what you’re feeling,” Tony says, talking very fast now. “I just meant, when I’m going through that, I can’t _do_ anything, and I hate it, and everyone can see that I can’t, and—and I thought maybe that’s what you hate right now, too.” 

“Yeah,” Steve says, pushing himself into a sitting position. He stares down at his wrists. They look painfully thin. “That’s what I hate about it.” 

“So,” Tony plows onward, “I wanted to tell you that, even if you’re stuck like this, without the serum, there’s lots you can do.” 

Steve barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes. “What, sharpening pencils for Fury? Organizing Pepper’s files?” He shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure you’ve already built robots that can do all of that better than I can right now.” Now that he’s colorblind again, he wouldn’t even be able to decipher Pepper’s color-coded labeling system. 

“You could anyway, if you wanted,” Tony says. “But that’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking something you’d actually feel good about.” 

“Yeah, like what?” Steve scoffs. 

“Like coming up with attack formations and battle plans. Like working on strategy and recruiting and training.”

“But,” Steve says sourly, “I couldn’t actually _fight_.” He can’t even lift his shield right now. He doesn’t want to contemplate it. 

“Sure you can,” Tony says. “I could make you that armor I keep talking about. That would help. You wouldn’t be a supersoldier inside it, but it’s nearly as good on the outside. Most of your health issues are at least treatable now, you know.” 

“I don’t think I’d make a very good armor pilot,” Steve says. 

“Why not?” 

“C’mon Tony, even regular pilots can’t be colorblind. I can’t see normally, I can’t hear normally, I can’t breathe normally, you don’t have to pretend I can actually help anyone just to make me feel better.” 

“I’m not,” Tony insists. “I wouldn’t. C’mon. They make these special lenses now; they basically correct red-green colorblindness entirely. I could figure out how they work and make you something custom, maybe even contact lenses.” He’s talking quickly, both excitement and trepidation in his voice. “And Clint’s Deaf, he has this crazy inner ear thing actually, did you know he needs these special custom-built hearing aids? You wouldn’t say he shouldn’t fight.” 

Steve hadn’t heard about those lenses, and he’s surprised Tony follows that sort of thing. Maybe he shouldn’t be, since apparently he makes Clint’s hearing aids, too. “But it wouldn’t really be me,” Steve says, then regrets it as soon as it’s out of his mouth. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” Tony snaps. He sighs. “Look, the way I see it, the supersoldier serum, it’s just technology. You with the serum, me with the armor—they help us be who we really are.” His voice is softer now, and Steve doesn’t think it’s just because he’s talking about armor. “Who we want to be. I’m not saying it would be the same, just that, you know, you can still help.” 

Steve watches Tony’s hands fidget in his lap, one red, one sunkissed golden skin—not that Steve can tell right now. Tony lost his hand and built a new one, a stronger one, that shoots repulsors out of the palm. Tony didn't stop at making a prosthetic that gave him the same abilities as a healthy, able-bodied person, no more than Steve would have chosen a serum that made him healthy if he could have one that gave him superhuman strength and resilience too. Everyone here is exceptional in some way, and they're here because they _chose_ to be, to hone and create and develop their powers—whether or not their own baseline is in the middle of the bell curve.

Of course Tony knows what it’s like being disabled, just as well as Winter, Clint, Misty, and so many others on campus do. Steve feels like an asshole. 

Still, it’s strange to think of the suit and the serum that way—as just tech, the same, just ways they make themselves closer to their own ideals. “You’d really build me an armor like that?” 

Tony doesn’t bother to stop himself from rolling his eyes at Steve. “Of course I would.” Before Steve can try to put into words what that means to him, Tony’s talking again. “So? Did I cheer you up? Are you ready to be distracted by snacks and video games?” 

Steve grins. “Yeah Tony,” he says, watching Tony smile back. “You did great.” 

* * *

“Oh.” Tony stares, his eyebrows starting to knit together before he seems to remember himself and breaks into a grin. “I knew it would work,” he says smugly. “Bruce is the best science bro ever.” 

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve says. He can see the red in Tony’s jacket again and relief surges in his chest. He’s been seeing color since Bruce and Dr. Pym injected him with the antidote, of course, and as much as his returned height and bulk should be sufficient evidence in themselves, it somehow didn’t feel like the serum was really working until he saw Tony. 

“Well, you didn’t have to cancel Star Trek night in person,” Tony says, shifting from one foot to the other. “I know you know how to use a phone now, old man.” 

Steve frowns. “Why would I cancel Star Trek night?” 

“Uh, because you have the serum back?” Tony crosses his arms. “It’s okay, I know you probably want to go run, like, eighty million laps around the stadium just to celebrate that you can. The episodes are fifty years old, they’ll wait another few days.” 

“I’ll run laps another time,” Steve says firmly. Then he starts to second-guess himself. “Or, I could do that now, if you have something else—”

“No,” Tony cuts him off. “Let’s watch Star Trek. There’s this episode from season two I wanna show you. C’mon, I’ll have JARVIS start some popcorn.” He’s smiling now, grabbing Steve by the wrist and tugging him further into the penthouse. 

“Cheddar cheese popcorn or regular, Sir?” JARVIS intones. 

Tony scoffs. “Cheddar, JARVIS, do you even have to ask?” 

It doesn’t take long for them to settle onto a huge curved couch in front of a giant pane of glass that, of course, turns into a screen. A boxy robot on wheels delivers popcorn and beer while the theme song is still playing. 

Three episodes, two tubs of popcorn, and several grilled cheese sandwiches later—the sandwiches are fancy, of course, prepared by robots, made with provolone, mozzarella, and fresh pesto—Steve gathers the courage to ask something he’s been thinking about since Tony first visited him while he was de-serumed. 

“Hey. That pain you were telling me about the other day—if you get it while we’re hanging out, what should I do?” 

Tony pauses the show. “Oh, I mean, it probably won’t. I have it under control.” He’s not meeting Steve’s eyes. 

“I know you do,” Steve assures him. “Just in case.” 

“You don’t have to, I can handle it, or if it’s really bad JARVIS can call Jan or Rhodey—” 

“But I’ll already be there,” Steve points out. “In this hypothetical scenario, I mean. So is there at least something I could do before Jan or Rhodey got there? If we’re at my dorm or practicing or something, should I bring you here?” 

“You don’t have to,” Tony says again. 

“I know I don’t have to.” 

Still not looking up, Tony picks at the label on his beer bottle. “Okay.” He sighs, and when he finally raises his eyes to Steve’s face, they’re huge and tawny and liquid, with halos of amber around the irises. 

A tingling sensation tiptoes up Steve’s spine. Tony’s eyes remind him of pouring maple syrup onto a stack of challah French toast. 

Tony clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says, turning away, “if we’re not here, definitely bring me here. I might not be able to talk, but JARVIS can help. There’s this heat thing that it helps to put on my chest, but the robots can cover that. It just” —he winces— “it helps to have someone with me. Just to, I dunno, confirm that it’s real? That sounds stupid. I mean, it’s like, to remind me that there’s nothing actually hurting me, and that I really can breathe, and that the pain is real but I’m going to be okay.” 

Steve nods, even though Tony can’t see him. “Okay,” he says quietly. “I can do that.” 

Tony closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, lifts his head, and by the time he’s sitting up and looking at Steve again, he’s smiling. “Alright, the next one I want you to see is ‘Spock’s Brain.’ Spock’s brain gets _actually_ stolen! It’s exactly as ridiculous as it sounds, it’s amazing.” 

“Sounds great,” Steve agrees. 


	5. Chapter 5

Pepper is the first person Steve sees when he reaches Tony’s floor. “Perfect, a tall person!” She claps her hands together. “C’mere and help me hang these streamers.” 

It’s the night of Tony’s birthday party, and Steve’s been invited to help set up before the other guests arrive. Besides himself and Pepper, Jan, Rhodes, and Tony are the only people in the penthouse. 

“Shouldn’t someone who can fly be doing this?” Steve asks, but he takes the roll of crimson crepe paper anyway and follows Pepper to a ladder that reaches almost, but not quite, to the top of the two-story ceilings. “Like, say, War Machine or Iron Man?” 

Pepper makes a noise somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle. Somehow, it comes out as elegant as her Jimmy Choo stilettos. 

“Don’t give them any ideas!” Jan says as she strides in, arms brimming with bags of confetti, glitter, and metallic gold stars. “We try to keep indoor armor use to a minimum.” 

Steve finishes attaching one end of the streamers Pepper has passed up to him, climbs down the ladder, and starts moving it to the next spot. “What about the robots?”

“Ooh, better not mention those,” Jan says in a stage-whisper. “There’s another virus or whatever. Probably Ultron. Shit, shh, shh, here they come!” 

“All my favorite people!” Tony crows when he comes into the room, lifting both arms in the air and nearly spilling his glass of wine in the process. “And non-human persons,” he adds. 

“Is there more than one of those in here?” Rhodes asks under his breath. 

“Much appreciated, Sir,” JARVIS replies. 

“Let’s do this!” Tony says, setting his glass down and wiping his hands on his pants. 

The rest of set-up is kind of a blur after that. Partially because Steve keeps thinking about how Tony called him one of his favorite people. And partially because Tony’s in his shirtsleeves and his tight pants and keeps bending over to work on his confetti-and-sparkle-dispensing contraptions. 

Vision arrives a half-hour early to set up his DJ equipment. The first guests to arrive are the Thors: Mighty Thor, Thor Odinson, Frog Thor, and Beta Ray Bill. Tony yells triumphantly when they come in. The Thors, already exultant, yell back and lift their respective Mjölnirs in the air. 

“Woa, chill with the hammer-raising. Pretty sure that’s how you get tears in the space-time continuum,” Rhodes warns. 

“Who needs drinks?” Tony asks, heading to one of the drinks carts set up around the main room. 

This elicits another round of whooping and bellowing from the Thors. 

It takes no time at all for guests to saturate the front room’s capacity. Steve thinks he recognizes some of the partygoers from the Cosmic Conservatory, Kamar-Taj, and Attilan, and there’s one he thinks might be the AIM defector Nat mentioned. There’s also a number of guests who make him wonder how (and if) Tony knows them. Some of them don’t even seem to be superheroes. 

There’s dancing in one of the other living rooms, which is as packed as a beehive. Through the press of bodies, Steve catches a glimpse of Sam playing video games with Kamala in another room, and Winter and Natasha conferring near the beer fridge. It’s so crowded that he’s not confident he can reach them before they move on to somewhere else too. He’d have to get past Clint, Lucky, and Kate to reach either pair, and the crowd of tipsy superheroes converging to pet and croon at Lucky is a formidable barricade. Steve manages to catch up with Bucky briefly, but the latter is trying to get to the roof to play accordion for the smokers who’ve gathered up there. 

Tony finds him once. There’s glitter and sugar sprinkles in his hair, and he’s wearing sunglasses. “This is going great!” Tony yells over the music and other raised voices. 

“Yeah!” Steve calls back, feigning enthusiasm. “Awesome party!” 

Tony lifts his sunglasses, grins, and winks at Steve before turning around, shooting a peace sign behind him, and disappearing back into the throng. 

Steve finally finds a less crowded room where he can catch his breath. He can see why others are avoiding it; Bruce Banner Hulk, Red Hulk, Amadeus Cho Hulk, and She-Hulk are playing beer pong. There are only a handful of other spectators. Jan is among them, filming them on her phone and cackling. 

“How’d they get drunk?” Steve asks her, because they clearly are; they’re collapsing into giggles and chortles, knocking over chairs and side tables in their fervor. 

“Ohmygodyouhavetotryit!” Jan squeaks, so fast it’s like it’s all one word. “Grandmaster brought it. It’s like, from another dimension or something.” 

“Okay,” Steve agrees warily. “Only if you promise not to post any photos or videos you take of me drunk.” 

“Pinky swear!” Jan agrees, immediately offering a pinky. 

He links fingers with her and lets her lead him to a table in the corner that has so far survived being in the same room as four Hulks. There’s a brass tray on top, with a half-dozen tumblers surrounding a carafe of twinkling, marmalade-colored liquid. The surface shimmers like a puddle of motor oil. 

Steve takes a tentative sip. It tastes grassier than he expected, something like rosemary and undercooked greens. Not bad, though. 

“Cheers!” Jan clinks her cocktail glass with Steve’s tumbler. Her drink is the color of daffodils. 

The party goes by faster after that. 

He’s not drunk, or at least not  _ very _ drunk, but he’s well on his way past tipsy when Pepper cuts into Vision’s set to announce that it’s almost time for Tony’s midnight birthday toast. “Those who wish to take part, please top off your drinks and gather on the roof.” 

Steve makes it through the stampede up the stairs, and then he’s underneath the stars with welcome, cool air skimming over his skin. The roof has the same square footage as the penthouse except without walls to split it up, so there’s plenty of breathing room even with everyone swarming to join the toast. People have split into small groups, some dancing, others smoking, the rest drinking and chattering. 

And there’s Tony in the middle, smile as wide and clever as the crescent moon above. There’s glitter all the way down his arms, more concentrated on his shoulders and scattered through his hair, too, like someone dumped it over his head. 

He’s incandescent. 

The yearning and melancholy that accompanies this thought comes so suddenly, it knocks Steve’s breath out of his lungs. For a moment, he’s scrawny, hunched little Steve Rogers, his chest tight, his breath short as he wheezes through an asthma attack. 

It figures he’s a sad drunk, Steve thinks bitterly. He’d just managed to start enjoying himself, too. 

Still. Tony has noticed Steve looking at him and is giving him a little wave, a crooked, barely-there smirk playing on his face. Steve has this at least, he thinks. Tony likes him and trusts him. They’re friends. That’s more than he had a few months ago. 

Steve watches as Tony climbs onto the shoulders of—he’s surprised and a little concerned to see—one of his silver Stark bots, helped by another giving him an extra push. Their eyes and smiles glow the same brilliant blue as the arc reactor. 

Tony opens a panel in his gauntlet and taps something into it, swaying a little each time he shifts but staying admirably upright. He lifts the gauntlet to his face, and when he speaks, it’s loud enough for the whole roof to hear. “I’m Tony Stark, and it’s my birthday!” 

This is met with whoops, cheers, foot-stomps, and the one-handed claps of people unwilling to set down their drinks. 

“Ultron thought he could ruin my party and sabotage the Academy with his dumb virus, but he couldn’t beat Stark tech this time!” Tony boasts. Further cheering ensues. “The bots are back! Let them ply you with drinks and cheese-covered snacks! And now,” he continues, holding the attention of the whole assembly like he was born to it, “it will be my official day of birth in less than a minute. When I say ‘go,’ count down from five, and after we hit one, drink!” 

This is met with the loudest cheers yet. A robot passes Tony a shot glass of amber alcohol. He lifts it into the air and yells, “Go!” 

“Five!” the crowd chants as one. 

“Four!” The chorus of voices resounds across the roof, and surely down to the tower’s very foundation. Steve thinks he can feel the molecules in his body jostling together.

“Three!” everyone calls out, increasing in volume. 

“Two!” Tony’s smile lights his eyes so bright Steve can see it from yards away. The moon lights him from behind, granting him a silver aura around his glitter-covered skin and maraschino-cherry gauntlet and jet boots.

“One!” This cry is the loudest yet. Confetti cannons detonate their cargo, spirals of gold ribbon shoot from robot arms, glitter bombs detonate. 

Steve throws back the rest of his drink, eyes on Tony as he does the same, fireworks bursting and erupting behind him in showers of sparks and glittering color. 


	6. Chapter 6

Around 3 in the morning, at Jan’s insistence, Tony starts opening presents. The mood of the assembled party has drifted from jubilant and vigorous to pleased and laid-back. Vision’s finished DJing for the night, so it’s just soft classic rock playing in the background. The trip to the front room, where the gifts are piled, is chatty but subdued. 

There aren’t as many gifts as Steve expected. A lot of people must’ve just brought bottles of alcohol or snacks to share with the whole party.

“Open mine first!” Jan squeals, bouncing on the balls of her feet. 

“Okay, okay,” Tony affirms. Now he has a layer of confetti over his first coat of glitter. 

Jan hands him a small, flat box wrapped in mint green fabric with magenta polka-dots, the cloth forming the bow at the top. Tony carefully undoes the bow, while Jan clasps her hands and jumps up and down. Steve, who’s been maintaining a steady buzz on Grandmaster’s booze since the toast, has no idea how she still has so much energy. Watching her is making him sleepy, so he watches Tony, instead: his clever fingers, both flesh and metal, moving with utmost precision. When he finishes unwrapping, Tony sticks the fabric in his back pocket like a handkerchief.

Beneath the fabric is a plain white box. Tony removes the lid and pulls out a wool scarf—knowing Jan, it’s one she knitted herself—in the same red, yellow, and black of Tony’s favorite jacket. “Awesome!” he says, putting it on. It’s wide, and long enough to wrap around his neck at least twice, so it ends up looking like a bulky cowl, incongruous with his skin-tight tee and generous sprinkling of glitter and confetti. 

“You look great!” Jan cries. She tugs Tony closer to her and lifts her phone to take a selfie. “This is going on my Instagram. It’s a one-of-a-kind Janet Van Dyne piece!” 

Tony pulls out his sunglasses, sets them on, and turns to give Jan a peck on the forehead, holding the pose long enough for her to get a few pictures. Steve pretends to himself that the tightness in his throat is some kind of reaction to the booze. He’s never gotten drunk before, after all. 

Tony opens Pepper’s next: a silk necktie with a matching pocket square. 

“It’s Gucci,” she says, smiling proudly. 

“It’s gorgeous,” Tony says, and leans in to give her a brief hug.

When they pull apart, Rhodes is there, proffering a gift the size of a shoebox. Tony takes it and tears the matte green wrapping paper off in shreds to reveal a plastic container full of cookies. “Rhodes cookies!” he announces triumphantly. 

“Ooh, I’ve heard of those,” Sam puts in. 

“Jim’s mom’s recipe is _legendary_ ,” Winter breathes. 

Tony hugs the box to himself. “Hey, these are mine! You want Rhodes cookies, you become Rhodey’s best friend, or you suck up Mrs. Rhodes, but these are all for me.” 

Rhodes grins, looking very pleased with himself. “I made these myself.” 

“Even better,” Tony beams. 

He keeps the cookies on his lap while he opens the presents. Amora’s is a homemade liqueur—or so she claims. Stephen’s gift is a charm that he promises will protect Tony from whatever’s really in the so-called liqueur. Amora pouts. After a few more gifts—a 22-pound wheel of Monterey Jack from Carol, a box of roasted acorns from Doreen, and a growler of artisan beer from Thor Odinson—she leaves. 

Natasha’s gift is presented with utmost precision, like the hospital corners equivalent of giftwrapping. Steve’s sitting right in front of it and can’t even see where the tape is. It’s decorated with beautiful papercut designs, which, given her skill with knives, she must have made herself. Tony opens it carefully, leaving all the paper as intact as possible.

Inside is an Iron Man hoodie pajama set, printed with colors and shapes corresponding to Tony’s full armor. There’s even a glow-in-the-dark arc reactor in the middle of the chest, and the hood has an extra bit of mesh printed with the faceplate hanging from it to pull down. Tony grins and puts it on over his tee, leaving it unzipped so his arc reactor glows through. 

Next is Steve’s present. He both wants Tony to open it right away, and to put it off until the end to stave off his own embarrassment. The gift is wrapped a little messily, and Tony rips through it messily too, a gleeful expression on his face. There’s a custom wooden box Steve commissioned to hold the knives, made of walnut and lined with crimson velvet. The little sound Tony makes when he sees what’s inside is one Steve will treasure forever. 

“There are awesome,” Tony breathes, running his fingers over the contents. The knives have a bright vermeil finish. They nestle into velvet-lined niches cut to fit each one exactly.

“They’re, uh, also sharp enough to use as weapons,” Steve says, shuffling his feet. “And strong enough, too; they’re adamantium under the gold.” 

Out of his peripheral vision he sees Natasha trying to catch his eye. She gives an approving nod. 

Tony sets the box down and before Steve can process what’s happening, pulls him into a tight hug. There’s still a cheese knife in Tony’s hand, conscientiously held away from Steve’s back, and this strikes him as darkly funny. Didn’t that anthropology professor say that hugs started as a way to prove you were unarmed? Or maybe that was handshakes. 

The arc reactor presses gently against Steve’s chest; he’d expected it to feel warm, or for it to vibrate, maybe, but it just feels like metal through two layers of cloth. The novelty of it serves as a forceful reminder that they’ve never hugged before. 

Tony’s the one who pulls away first. Steve’s face is hot, and no doubt bright red. 

“Thank you,” Tony says after a moment. 

Steve scratches the back of his head and looks away. “You’re welcome.” 

Loki’s gift is a framed photo collage of herself, portraying at least two of her genders and a variety of elaborate costumes. Other than that, the remaining presents are blocks of cheese or bottles of alcohol, and Steve starts to feel self-conscious that so many people got Tony cheese-related presents, too. 

* * *

The bulk of the remaining guests depart in the half-hour after Tony finishes opening his presents, leaving only a handful people more than had been there to set up—Natasha, T’Challa, Jen, and Carol. The energy level has slowed further. Even Jan has mellowed out.

They congregate in one of the penthouse’s smaller entertaining areas, the couch-filled den where Steve and Tony watch Star Trek. Robots serve birthday cake, tea, and coffee in addition to the alcohol selection they’d provided before. Steve gets a slice with most of Tony’s name written on it in frosting. 

Carol insists that Rhodes needs to see a video of rotini being manufactured. JARVIS brings it up on the main screen and everyone settles into couches to watch, clutching their drinks and dessert plates. When the video ends, Jen puts on a compilation of cats wandering into courtrooms, then T’Challa presents one of a parade of cats dressed in Avengers costumes, and Natasha—who had never struck Steve as a dog person, but here they are—insists they balance out the cat representation and asks JARVIS to play what transpires to be a video of a dachshund proudly carrying an oversized branch. Jan follows it with an Instagram post of Lucky stealing pizza out of Clint’s hand without him noticing. Pepper plays a video she took of Tony in Pym’s lab. Her giggles are audible in the background, as well as the buzz of other students. Onscreen, Tony pours beakers of liquids Steve doesn’t recognize into other beakers, until the mixture he’s made lights up in a flash, making a little round cloud of gray dust just above the beaker’s rim. Video-Pepper’s laughter rises into a guffaw at the stunned expression on video-Tony’s dust-covered face. 

Nat, Pepper, and Rhodes devote themselves to showing off their favorite video clips. Carol begs Jen for a massage, and ends up sitting on the floor so Jen can reach her shoulders from the couch. T’Challa and JARVIS are deep in a conversation about flexible body armor, and Jan is taking photos of everyone—mostly Tony, who is posing and shooting kisses at her phone. Steve watches them both. 

Jan snaps a pic of Tony biting into a Rhodes cookie with a rapturous expression on his face. His eyes are closed in elation. There’s a dusting of powdered sugar on his lips and chin when he finishes gobbling the cookie. Steve has a feeling that that expression—and Jan’s photo of it—is going to haunt his dreams. 

Jan overhears T’Challa talking about biochemistry, and excuses herself to join in, leaving Steve alone on the couch with Tony. 

It shouldn’t feel weird. Steve’s been on this couch with Tony before. Hell, he’s been alone in this room with Tony, for hours at a time without feeling self-conscious. 

Tony unwittingly rescues him by speaking first. “Hey,” he says quietly, “I wanted to thank you again, for your present. A lot of people don’t bother to get me anything, which makes sense, I mean, I have more money than anyone should really have, I can buy whatever I want.” 

This strikes Steve as wrong—if poignant—for two reasons. One: Tony has put more of his money into charity in the last year than every other billionaire in the United States combined. Two: Steve’s ma taught him that gifts are about the thought behind them. If someone gives you a present you don’t like, you accept it graciously and thank them earnestly, knowing that what they’ve really offered is evidence that you’re in their thoughts. The object itself can always be discreetly disposed of later. So it shouldn’t matter that Tony can buy whatever he wants, because maybe someone will think of something that never occurred to him. Or, if they can’t think of anything, they could even make a donation to one of his favorite charities or just make him a simple card, but it seems insufficient, boorish even, to bring nothing at all. 

“I usually just get a lot of booze and cheese and Iron Man merch,” Tony continues. “Which is great! I mean, I love those things. And I mean, no one has to get me anything at all! And Jan always knits me something, and Pepper gets me something that’s like, for work, and Rhodey makes these cookies. Oh, do you want one? They’re really good.” 

Steve blinks. Tony had definitely said that he wasn’t sharing them with anyone. He’s spent the entire time after receiving them clutching the container protectively to his chest. But here he is, offering one for Steve to take. He’s holding it right up to Steve’s face; if he were to lean forward just a little, he could eat it right out of Tony’s hand. 

“Thanks,” Steve says, plucking it out of Tony’s fingers instead. 

“Anyway.” Tony flicks his tongue up to lick away some of the powdered sugar on his face, then takes another cookie and is soon covered in sugar all over again. “Jan always makes people one-of-a-kind Janet Van Dyne fashion pieces, and Rhodey bakes people things, and Pepper’s always giving people practical stuff. I know they love me and they’re thinking about me, and I shouldn’t be disappointed by that, and I’m _not_ , I just…” He trails off, making a kind of shrug with his hands. “What I was trying to say is—and never, ever tell Jan or Rhodey or Pep this, okay—I can’t think of the last time someone gave me a present they really _thought_ about in anything beyond the most basic way. I don’t know if someone has.” 

Steve swallows a chunk of unchewed cookie. “You’re welcome,” he says. “I’m glad you like them. And wow, these really are amazing!” 

Tony accepts the change of subject with a beautiful grin. His face is still so close to Steve’s, close enough to see the short bristles of stubble that have grown over the day and long night. “Aren’t they? C’mon, have another one.” 

Steve accepts the cookie, at a loss for words. When Tony isn’t looking, he tucks it into one of his belt pouches. Maybe it will be enough to repay Loki for her help. 

He’s disappointed he doesn’t get to eat it himself, but he has a good feeling that Tony’s going to offer him another.


	7. Chapter 7

Carol is the first to fall asleep, facilitated, no doubt, by Jen’s massage. Pepper, Jan, and Rhodes are still chatting and watching videos, despite the dimmed lights and late hour. Jen and T’Challa try to keep their eyes open, but only a couple clips later they’re each sprawled out, unconscious on one couch each. Nat’s on a couch by herself too, situated so she could, if she wanted, be part of any conversation in the room without having to move or yell. She seems alert, spine straight, eyes roving over the room as she absorbs the conversation in silence. 

For a bit, Tony takes part in the conversation. Steve just lets the voices wash over him. He’s drunk enough, or tired enough, or both, to not care that he’s awake and bored. Tony starts out gesturing widely with his hands, but after startling Steve several times—“Woa there Cap, sorry, guess you get spooked pretty easy when you’re buzzed!”—lounges against the back of the couch, his hands tapping at his legs instead. 

It’s nice sitting so close to Tony, Steve thinks, shifting closer before he realizes what he’s doing. As his eyes drift shut, he hears Rhodes, who’s already resting his head on Jan’s shoulder, say, “Yeah, man,” followed by a yawn, and then soft snores. Jan and Pepper are still chatting quietly, but none of it sounds like words to Steve. 

His eyes flicker open briefly. Tony has taken Steve’s arm in his own and arranged himself so their hips and torsos are pressed together. What’s woken Steve is the feeling of Tony letting his head fall to one side, landing on Steve’s shoulder. He smiles down at Tony’s closed eyes and smooth, relaxed face, and then unconsciousness takes him. 

* * *

The next time Steve opens his eyes, Jan and Pepper are spooning on one of the deep sofas. T’Challa is curled into a ball like—Steve can’t help but thing—a cat. Jen has somehow sprawled even further, one leg hooked over the back of the couch, the other bent with the top of her foot resting on the ground. Natasha’s sitting mostly as before, except that her spine—still straight—is tipped at an angle from her hips, so her head and shoulders rest on the back of the couch. Rhodes’ snoring is the only soundtrack to the silent video flickering on the screen: a dog, sitting at a table with their human with a tower of Jenga blocks between them, then carefully leaning forward, using their mouth to tug a log out, before leaning back, block still resting between their teeth, tail wagging. 

“JARVIS, screen off, please,” Steve whispers. 

The video winks out, leaving the room in near complete darkness. Of course, Steve can see in complete darkness. For him there’s plenty of light now to gaze down at Tony—his sleeping form, the speck of glitter that’s stuck in his eyelashes—and panic. 

He doesn’t think any of the confetti contraptions or glitter bombs had detonated in this room, but there’s still plenty tracked in on people’s shoes, and nestled into the creases of people’s clothes and skin. And Tony’s eyelids and hair and in his eyes and even in one eyebrow. 

Tony is cuddled pressed against him, asleep, and Steve is an utter asshole. Tony wouldn’t have allowed this is he knew how Steve feels about him. Not that he’d show it if he were uncomfortable—he’d be so kind, and never mention it again if that’s what Steve wanted—but that he wouldn’t want to lead Steve on. Once Steve had inched over so their hips were flush, Tony would have waited a couple minutes, then excused himself to grab a beer or check on a robot. When he came back, he’d sit somewhere else, taking the last spot on another couch so Steve couldn’t join him. 

But right now, Tony doesn’t know. He hasn’t done that. Steve runs his hands through Tony’s dark hair, combing out the confetti, getting glitter all over one hand, and contemplating how much thicker each strand of Tony’s hair is than Steve’s own. Then he freezes, blood rushing to his face in embarrassment. He extracts his hand as carefully from Tony’s hair as he can, barely breathing. 

Tony doesn’t wake up. 

A part of Steve wants him to, but he doesn’t know what he would say. He lets the back of his head fall over the back of the couch, remembering Tony’s profuse thanks from earlier in the night. If only Tony would let Steve make him that happy all the time. Or try to, anyway. Steve would try so hard, and sometimes he’d get it right, and Tony would be that much happier and taken care of. He’d bring Tony meals when he was lost in a project, help him clean up after lab explosions, and fall asleep squashed together. Just like this. 

* * *

“You seriously stayed up the rest of the night?” Sam asks, though he sounds more incredulous than concerned. “You’re lucky you don’t need sleep like the rest of us.” 

Steve groans into his hands. He’s hunched over a desk in the common room of Avenger’s Dorm, where the subject of their conversation is unlikely to appear. “If I’d gotten up I would’ve woken Tony.” Also, he’d been a little bit frozen by panic, but he’s not going to say that. 

“Yeah man, I got that,” Sam says gently. 

“You couldn’t fall back asleep?” Bucky asks. 

Seeing Steve’s shake of the head, Winter Soldier nods knowingly. “Thoughts of my love keep me awake, too.” Natasha pats Winter on the back without looking away from Steve’s face. Well, his hands and forearms, and the bits of his face that peek through his fingertips, which is all she can see. 

“I was there in the morning, too” Natasha says. “He didn’t seem to mind how he’d woken up.” 

“He wouldn’t,” Steve replies, holding back another groan. He can feel the scuffs in the laminate faux wood of the table through the elbows of his jacket. “He’s too polite to make a fuss.” 

Winter cocks his head, a thoughtful expression on his face that might mean he’s writing song lyrics in his head, trying to remember what he had for breakfast, or about to talk about Hydra. “Well, I don’t know Tony as well as you do. By the time I’d met him, you two were still working out your campus war thing. He does seem like the kinda guy who’ll put someone else’s feelings above his own and not even notice he’s doing it. But he also strikes me as someone who’ll make a fuss about things he doesn’t like.” He shrugs. “You’ve known him for a long time. Which do you think it is?” 

“I dunno,” Steve says to his hands. 

“And he didn’t say anything about it?” Sam asks. At Steve’s negative, he adds, “At all?” 

Steve’s reply is the same. He shakes his head, says, “No. He just carried on like nothing had happened. Had the robots squeeze oranges and make bloody Marys and waffles. We all ate breakfast and talked about that lecture Lunella gave about depictions of women as gynoids, cyborgs, and computers. Then he saw everyone off.” 

Nat’s blank face has taken on a cast that Steve can’t quite interpret. “When are you hanging out with him again, just the two of you?” 

“Tomorrow night.” Steve scrubs the heels of his hands over his eyes and pushes himself to sit upright. “We’re hanging out at the Tower. Going to watch more Star Trek.” 

“Then you can see how he feels then,” Bucky says brightly, like this is a solution that in no way could result in Tony ending his friendship with Steve. Again. “And if he seems weird, just ask him about it. You guys can work it out.” 

“Okay,” Steve says without conviction. He’s going to be a jumble of nerves until tomorrow night. Natasha’s still watching him with that inscrutable expression, which only adds to his disquiet. “You’re probably right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow's the last chapter! At ~2900 words, it's the longest one. 
> 
> Happy Hannukah!


	8. Chapter 8

“Steve!” Tony says brightly when the elevator door tucks itself away. He already has a massive bowl of popcorn cradled in one arm, his other occupied by a pink, sparkly soda in a glass bottle with a calligraphed label. “You’re right on time. Want anything to drink? The bots can get you whatever.”

Steve scratches the back of his head. “I’ll just have whatever you’re having.” 

“Got that JARVIS?” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

“C’mon,” Tony calls over his shoulder, already leading the way to the den with the big screen. “I’ve actually been really excited to see what you think of this next episode, it’s a classic and—well, you’ll see.”

When Steve catches up to him, Tony is already settled onto the couch opposite the main screen. Steve takes a glass soda bottle from a robot by the door and tries to decide where to sit. He didn’t worry about how close to sit to Tony before the birthday party, did he? The couch is so big. It could fit four people easily, and Steve could take any of the empty spots. 

The episode is already starting. The  _ Enterprise’s _ red alert pulses through the speakers. Mr. Scott and the bridge crew are doling out exposition about the time ripples plaguing the ship. 

Steve takes a deep breath and sits down next to Tony, about a half-foot between them. Hopefully it won’t look like he minds being near Tony, while at the same time giving Tony the option to scoot a little bit away without it seeming weird. 

Tony passes the bowl over without turning his gaze away from the screen. Steve takes it and watches the colored light splash over Tony’s face. He takes a massive handful of popcorn, so big that pieces are falling between his fingers. He shoves as much as he can into his mouth, not even finished with the last mouthful. His cheeks are stuffed, reminding Steve of a chipmunk collecting nuts. Steve’s smiling when he finally turns his attention to the episode. 

“That seems like a major design flaw in the hypospray,” he says when Dr. McCoy accidentally gets shot up with a giant dose of future drugs. 

“Yeah, probably,” Tony says, shoveling more popcorn into his mouth. 

A couple scenes later, after Kirk and Spock time travel to the Great Depression, Steve asks, “Is this why you wanted me to see this episode?”

Tony looks at him out of the corner of his eye and shrugs a little. “Yeah, partially. It really is a classic though, one of the most famous ones.” 

They watch in silence for some minutes more. Steve searches for something to put them both back at ease, but nothing springs to mind. Finally he settles for responding to the episode. “The set is terrible. It doesn’t look like the 30s at all. Or the 20s, or whenever it’s supposed to be.” The episode hasn’t really made that clear. 

Tony chuckles. He takes in a breath, opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something, then closes it again. 

“This is from the 60s, right? People my age were still around then, we could have fixed the set for them,” Steve grumbles. 

“Would you do it?” Tony asks, his face still pointed at the screen. “Go back?” 

“Of course not,” Steve says. 

“What do you mean, ‘of course?’” Tony sputters. “You don’t even have to think about it?” 

“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be fun to be back then while  _ also _ being strong enough to punch President Hoover in the face,” Steve says, considering, “but it wouldn’t be worth it. This is my home now.” All his friends are here, after all, Natasha, Sam, even Peggy and the two Buckys. Not to mention Tony. 

Tony elbows him. “How can you even say stuff like that and mean it?” He sticks out his tongue in mock distaste. “It’s okay to miss the past, Cap.” 

“I had some good things then,” Steve acknowledges. “But I have good things now. Life goes on. I dunno, I don’t think it’s that different from how most people think about their pasts.” 

The episode carries on without them. Kirk is meeting a beautiful woman. The image on the screen is blurry in a way that reminds Steve of over-airbrushed photos. After some moments, Tony says, “Okay,” and turns back to the show. 

The woman, Edith, invites Kirk and Spock to eat at her mission, and finds them a place to stay. They work for her, and ask her about borrowing some equipment they need for the plot. Steve went to grade school with a couple girls named Edith; he thinks that’s the last time he met anyone with the name. Edith is saying she has questions for them, that it’s obvious Kirk and Spock are out of place. 

“Interesting,” Spock replies, his voice coming from speakers all over the den. He glances at Kirk, then approaches Edith. “Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?” 

“You?” she asks Spock, her eyes wide and assessing, a smile in her voice. She knows what she’s about to say is true, and doesn’t mind showing how smug she is about it. “At his side, as if you've always been there and always will.” Spock’s eyes turn to Kirk as Edith shifts her attention as well. “And you?” She shakes her head, eyes softening. “You belong in another place. I don't know where or how. I'll figure it out eventually.”

Spock looks wary, Kirk intrigued; there’s a crooked smirk playing on his lips. Edith smiles back. 

“Wow,” Tony murmurs. “Even the love-interest-lady-of-the-week can tell how in love Kirk and Spock are.” 

Steve chuckles. Tony had had a lot to say about that episode where Spock goes through a Vulcan sexual cycle and he and Kirk wrestle in the desert. 

As if to contradict what Tony had said earlier, the next scene starts with Kirk and Edith walking down the street together, side-by-side, Spock nowhere in sight. She’s asking him about why Spock calls Kirk “Captain.” Her latest outfit and hairstyle look, to Steve’s eye, unmistakably 60’s. 

“And you don't want to talk about it?” Edith asks, not sounding displeased that Kirk won’t answer in full so much as intrigued and amused. When her gaze locks with Kirk’s, she’s smiling. She stops him with a hand on his arm. “Why? Did you do something wrong?” Kirk shakes his head a little and starts to reply, but she cuts him off. Her expression is concerned now. “Are you afraid of something?” They’re just standing together on the sidewalk now, Edith’s whole body facing Kirk’s, Kirk facing front except for his head, which is turned toward her. She’s taken his arm in her hand again. “Whatever it is, let me help.” 

“Let me help,” Kirk repeats, looking forward and setting off again. Edith’s face stays pointed at him as they walk, like a sunflower toward the sun, while Kirk strides on. “A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme.” He finally looks at her again, his posture beginning to rearrange his body in her direction. “He'll recommend those three words even over ‘I love you.’” 

“That’s beautiful,” Steve says without meaning to.

“This episode is so good,” Tony says, as if in agreement. He holds out the bowl toward Steve, who takes takes a handful. 

The episode proceeds. McCoy makes his appearance in the past, and Edith helps him. Spock determines that if Edith doesn’t soon die in a traffic accident, as she did in their original timeline, the Nazis will win the war and use nuclear weapons to take over the world. 

Tony winces. “Sorry, I didn’t really think about this part when I suggested we watch it.” 

“It’s okay, Tony. I still fight Nazis, remember?” 

“Yeah,” Tony replies with a weak smile. 

“Spock, I believe I'm in love with Edith Keeler,” Kirk is saying now. 

Spock’s face, as ever, is neutral. “Jim, Edith Keeler must die.” 

“That’s a big theme of the movies, actually,” Tony says through a mouthful of popcorn. “‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one,’” he quotes. 

The episode unfolds following exactly that logic; Kirk, Spock, and McCoy reunite just in time to watch as Edith is hit by a truck and killed. McCoy, not knowing about the timeline changes, is shocked that Kirk prevented him from stepping in to help her. 

“I don’t know if I like that theme,” Steve says, reaching into the bowl on Tony’s lap for more popcorn. “Maybe if she chose that sacrifice herself. But she didn’t deserve to die, and they could’ve saved her.” 

“What about the billions of other people who would’ve died?” Tony asks. “And the timeline where the Federation never exists?” 

“I think they could’ve found another way.” 

“Like what?” 

Steve thinks. It only takes a second to find a better plan. “So she has to be removed from that part of the timeline. That doesn’t mean the only way to remove her from the equation is for her to die. They could have taken her back to their future with them. She could’ve seen the peaceful future mankind has created, and be a part of that. She would probably eventually join Starfleet.” 

Tony grins. “Something kinda like that actually happens in one of—” He cuts himself off with a sudden deep breath. Every part of his face falls, from the upturned creases of his eyes to the raised edges of his lips pulling downward. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Tony says, but his voice is ragged, he has one hand on his chest, and Steve doesn’t believe him for a minute. 

“Lemme take that,” Steve says as he takes the popcorn bowl and sets it aside. 

“It’s,” Tony starts, then winces. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he gasps, letting his head fall between his legs. 

“I’m okay,” Tony insists as the credits start to play. “It’s just—fuck—it’s the—” Another sharp intake of breath and labored exhale cuts him off, so he just gestures tightly toward his arc reactor. 

“JARVIS?” Steve glances up toward where thinks some of the cameras JARVIS uses might be. Beside him, Tony’s shoulders are heaving, his whole body quavering and sending ripples through the couch. 

“Yes, Captain?” 

“Are the bots, uh, doing their thing? Do I need to… ask them or something?” 

“A Stark bot will be in shortly with a heat pack, a glass of water, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs,” JARVIS reassures him.

“I’m okay,” Tony says again. His voice is weak and when he lifts his head to look Steve in the face, there are tear tracks running down his face. “You can” —he stops, eyes squeezed shut, face twisted, before he takes a shaky breath and goes on— “go. JARVIS and I have got this.” 

Steve knows Tony doesn't need him. Tony doesn't need anything more than his genius brain and some scraps of metal. He’s more successful, not to mention happier, when he has other people, even if insists he wants none of it. That's what having a team is for, though. They have each other's backs, even if they aren't asked. 

So maybe Tony doesn't need Steve, even right now. Jan or Rhodes could do just as well, if not better. 

But Steve's the one who's here right now, and so what if Tony doesn't need him? Steve doesn't need to be needed. He can admit though: he wants to be wanted. 

When he glances at the screen, it’s black. The episode ended without him noticing. The loudest sound in the room is Tony’s fragmented breathing. It’s becoming increasingly acute and more and more accompanied by stifled groans. The next exhale Tony makes turns into a frustrated, growling sort of whine, and he lets his head fall between his legs again. He looks defeated, and Steve can’t stand it. 

"Let me help." He doesn't realize what he's said until the words tumble out of him. He slaps a hand over his mouth and hopes Tony hasn’t noticed the full import of how, precisely, that sentiment was phrased. 

Tony sniffs and makes the closest approximation of a nod he can manage. 

Steve’s ashamed that he’s experiencing such a bright, joyous feeling as the one stirred in him now. It’s not right, when Tony’s hurting so badly. He pushes it aside and says, “Focus on your breathing.” He hopes it doesn’t sound like an admonishment. 

“Can’t,” Tony chokes out, curling himself up even tighter. “Can’t. Breathe.” 

“That’s okay,” Steve says, as gently as he can. “Just try to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling. Let the air fill your lungs, okay? Can you count the breaths?” 

Tony makes a sound of assent that is hauntingly similar to that of someone being garotted. 

“You’re going to be fine.” Steve tries to make himself believe that, too. “It’s okay. It hurts now, but it’s going to go away.” 

He leads Tony in breathing exercises until a bot comes in with the promised items. When Tony pushes himself up to take his pills, his face is red and puffy. Worst of all, he looks resigned. Tony shouldn’t be used to this. No one should. 

Steve watches as Tony gets the heat pack positioned over his chest and then tucks his legs under him, curling into a ball with his forehead in Steve’s lap. "Want me to put the show back on?"

Another near-nod. 

"JARVIS, would you start the next episode, please?" 

"Certainly, Captain." 

The production vanity card appears on the screen. "If there's a bit you can't see and wanna know what's going on, just elbow me and I'll describe what's happening. Okay?" 

"Okay," Tony rasps into his knees. 

The cold open plays out and Kirk affirms that the planet in need is the one where his brother and his family are stationed. Steve realizes that he doesn't know what episode Tony had wanted to watch next. He doesn't know if Tony has a system or a list or is just picking whatever episode he's in the mood for. This is just the episode that aired directly after the last one. It'll have to do. 

The planet is apparently afflicted with some sort of contagious madness. Dr. McCoy discovers that a mysterious alien species is inhabiting people’s bodies, attaching to their spinal cord and entwining tentacles throughout their nervous systems. Spock is infected but is able to resist the control—and pain—that the creature exerts. 

Tony lifts a shaking arm and wraps it around Steve’s leg. “It’s okay,” Steve says softly. He can feel Tony trembling against him, and hesitantly places a hand on Tony’s back, rubbing slow circles over it. “In and out.” He takes drawn out, even breaths. Tony’s lungs inflate and deflate under his hand. 

Onscreen, Kirk is asking, “Can he control it the way he says, Bones?” 

“Who knows, Jim?” McCoy replies. “I know the amount of pain the creature can inflict upon him, but whether he can control it hour to hour.” 

Spock is unwavering. “I have my own will, Captain,” he insists. “Let me help.” 

There’s more dialogue after that, but Steve can’t hear it over the pulse beating in his ears. His face is hot, and he’s briefly glad that Tony can’t see him. He’d hoped that the matter would just drop, but now they’ve both just been reminded of what Steve said. He has no idea what Tony’s thinking, how he’ll react to it once he’s well. The chagrin and anticipation help to clear his mind, but he still watches next few minutes of the episode through a fog. 

Beside him, Tony’s breath is evening out, growing gentler. Each uninhibited inhale and exhale brings an accompanying, incremental relief from Steve’s worry. 

Tony pushes himself up on his elbows. He moves shakily, still clutching the heat pack to his chest. "Did you mean it? To say it that way?" he asks, voice steady but hoarse. His eyes are fixed on his own knees. 

"Yes," Steve replies, because he's not going to lie about this. 

He doesn't dare look at Tony. The episode has as much attention as he can direct toward it. Which, in this case, isn't a lot—he has a vague idea that the crew of the  _ Enterprise _ are trying to find a way to eliminate the aliens, but he’s not sure how. So it's easy to hear Tony shifting, to feel him nestle their bodies closer together, one arm over Steve's shoulders. 

Steve doesn't breathe for. He checks in with himself; yes, this is happening. The silence between them lengthens. He lifts a hand to take Tony's free one and forces himself, finally, to look Tony in the face. He’s done things more frightening than this, surely, but at the moment he can’t think of a single one. 

Tony is smiling at him, more with his eyes than his mouth—but what eyes. The light in them reminds Steve of astronomy photos of nebulas or planetarium shows displaying the entire galaxy. There are smudges of powdered cheese on the corners of Tony’s lips, and Steve wants to lick them off. 

“Let me help you too, Steve,” Tony says. 

Steve closes his eyes, smiling so wide he thinks it’ll split his face apart, and Tony kisses the corners of Steve’s lips instead. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tony's chronic pain is based on my real-life experiences. For everything else, I did my best. Apologies if I got any medical or disability stuff wrong! If I have made an objective mistake, feel free to (politely) message me or note it in the comments and I will fix it the best I can.
> 
> [tumblr post](https://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com/post/189996785470/let-me-help-chapter-1-dirigibleplumbing) for the fic. 
> 
> For writing updates, writing excerpts, reblogs about Steve/Tony, NBC Hannibal, Star Trek, gifs and of crows hopping along the road, plus the occasional info about my life (usually in the form of dog pics), follow me on [tumblr](https://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com).


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